My second talk at SEMKonferansen in Oslo, Norway, was about SPAM in social media. I have studied a lot of spam tactics over the years as spammers have a tendency to pick up new technologies, loop holes and other such methods very fast. I learn from them, adopt their inventions and use the triggers for my own “white hat” campaigns.

I used to work with spam before it was made illegal in Sweden. It was a lot of fun and it taught me to always find a simpler way of doing things. Some spam works, other doesn’t. I never suggest that anyone should actually spam but I always tell my clients when and how it is used in the industry. I see it as my responsibility to highlight the benefits as well as the risks. For most brands, the risks are too great. However, for smaller product websites, affiliates and/or private enterprises it has its perks and should not be left off the table.

I know it is kind of controversial to say what I just said, but I work for Honesty and thus I cannot be else than truthful about why I go around town presenting spam techniques. I should also say that none of my active clients endorse, use or even want me to discuss spam tactics with them. I promise to tell you if anyone of them do in the future (seriously.. I will tell you.. as you’ll find out anyhow…)

Some choose to discuss things in new terminology in order not to look bad. They call it seeding or link catalogs or paid social media. I choose to call things what they are. I say words like cheating and spam, just cause the methods are not available to everyone.

So, to clarify. Do I promote spam – NO. Do I use it for my current clients – NO. Have I previously used it – YES. Do I tell my clients about the effects of cheating, positive and negative – YES. I do all this because it is my job, and because I am one of the best in the world at it. Now, why do I share this knowledge? Because there is just so much that needs to be exposed in this industry of ours and I just felt like outing some of it.

You might be one of those companies who have currently created your social media strategy. Somewhere in it, you should have some lines about how to leverage Facebook’s technology from two perspectives.

1. How can I work on the Facebook platform
2. How can I leverage the value of user data derived from Facebook

You must remember that Facebook is a technology and not a network in itself. Just like the fact that you aren’t guaranteed a lot of visitors, buyers or other success just because you choose EPiServer or WordPress as your CMS. You need to do good stuff in order to do well.

First something about transparency and content

In your strategy you will probably have some sentences about transparency and that social media is about sharing valuable content. This is good, but we have to elaborate on this a bit for it to make sense business wise. You shouldn’t be transparent about everything, and you shouldn’t create any kind of content, just because your users find it valuable.

What level of transparency do you need?

Let’s start with transparency. What users expect from you, especially if you are a product brand, is that you are transparent about your intentions. Your goals and ambitions with your social media investments shall be public and easily accessible by the users. Also, you should make sure that you are transparent on the full promise you can deliver on with your products. If you are using child labor or if you are engaged in some kind of tax fraud, this is not the time to let it out there. You should probably get it sorted and change your business ethics instead.

The transparency of intentions sets the users expectations at a reasonable level. They know why they connect with you and they know what kind of communication they can expect to get out of you. All you have to do after that is to stay true to your promise. In some companies this is difficult as the bosses tend to neglect reason when they see a nominal number. You should make sure they understand, and are in compliance with the promises you make, before you start being successful. Otherwise things will/might turn really ugly. When it comes down to it, you will take the blame, so make sure your boss is there to make the promises with you in the beginning.

Is remarkable content really necessary?

Secondly, we have the question of “remarkable content”. Your primary objective is to find a funnel that leads to a billing relationship with all your fans as soon as possible. This is important to remember. If you give away stuff for free, people will expect this in the future as well, and thus you will have little success in driving business if you don’t set the foundation for this right away.

On Facebook, you are not allowed to give offers in the news feed, so you need to find another way of utilizing your Facebook page in order to drive sales. One of the best ways is to create a weekly coupon. People love coupons. I don’t know why, but they simply do. I can tell you that you will have a million times more success putting a weekly coupon on a Facebook page tab than you will if you put an online offer with a direct link on the same tab. Make an image of a coupon, create a button that reads “Claim your weekly coupon”, and then watch it go.

Naturally, you connect your coupon with special permissions that post to wall and collect all the user data through an application. Just imagine the possibilities with a “Jesper just claimed his weekly coupon on xxx.com” (don’t go to that site by the way… it was just an example… bad one perhaps.. ). It would surely go viral.

What I mean with this is that your content surely has to be good. But good content doesn’t have to be a purple cow. It might as well be a good offer, or an offer placed in a setting that makes it relevant.

But let’s get back to the billing relationship.

So how about that billing relationship?

Every week I hear social media prophets talk about remarkable content as though it was the easiest thing in the world to create. Most of them are talking about creative content. Such that make people go wild. But think about it. How many times a week do you do something just because you think wow? How many times per month do you buy something because you think wow? How many times a week do you connect with a new person because you think wow?

Most of the times you don’t. Most of the times you do stuff that you normally do, buy stuff that you feel you need, and connect with people that you think might be able to benefit your social or work needs in some way. Of the three things stated above, I would say it is the connection phase that has the greatest need for a wow-factor. But it is not to say that you have to create that remarkable sensation of storytelling success every time you share some kind of content. Especially not if you have been transparent with your intentions from the beginning.

But let’s get down to the tactics.

Facebook page conversion funnel

When I think of launching a new Facebook page I think of three steps. I will only go through one tactic in each step of the process.

• Persuasion to join
• Persuasion to share
• Persuasion to buy

These steps can be taken on site or on Facebook. Why I split it into these three stages is because it gives me clarity when I work and helps the client understand at what stage they are in the process.

If you need some insights into persuasion it basically states that you set up a goal, then you think of three or more reasons as to why a person shall want to walk the line to your goal. Then you find three facts that support each reason. Almost like building an essay. Each paragraph has a statement and at least three facts to support the statement. Here is a pdf that gives you a good matrix for when you work with this.

Now, this is what social media allows. Especially when working in social network environments. It allows dialogue, and thus you can make a statement and then use the facts in the dialogue to support it. Don’t give it all away at once. By doing that you will induce more dialogue, debate and be able to tell who is ready to move onto the next step in your conversion funnel.

Persuasion to join

Let’s do this with an example. I create a Facebook page and my primary goal is to get fans. I decide that I should buy a social ad from Facebook in order to grow quickly.

What’s great with the social ad is that it includes the facts you need in order to convince people that your page is the right choice. First of all you have the headline where you can make the statement of your goal. Then you have the text where you can make the statement of reason. Then you have the “social circle” that gives the user the final persuasion to join in compliance with theories of conformity. If some of my friends have joined, then why am I not in it already?

Perhaps a simple tactic, and there are much more sophisticated ones such as building a challenge or charisma app, but I’ll save those examples for my book… hehe..

Persuasion to share

Secondly, you need to get them to share some information about themselves. You do this through an application where the user grants you special permissions to your Facebook data. Now, this is more tricky than it sounds as you have to provide them with quite a persuasive argument in order to make them join. Either you can do it like Amazon did it:

• Goal: Connect your Amazon account to Facebook
• Reason: Improve your amazon shopping experience
• Facts that support the reason: See what your friends buy, get suggestions related to your network, ie. more relevant shopping experience.

In their case they put some security stuff in there as well. That’s natural as they are the first to do this kind of advanced integration, but the sense of security can be accomplished with some symbols as well (such as https or verisign).

If you do not wish to do it like Amazon and utilize the user data on your website outside of Facebook then you should probably have a look at some of the more fun and creative applications. Here you can have a look at what Burger King did with the defriend campaign or perhaps what FarmVille is doing. Two really strong ways to get special permissions from people. I strongly recommend you have a look at what Amazon has done though as I believe it will be the future of online business. It is highly persuasive in the phase of creating buyers to actually have an integration set up on your website. Otherwise you might loose the social stimulus and guarantees for your shop visitor when they are IN your online store choosing between several goods.

Persuasion to buy

Last but not least you have the persuasion to buy. Now this is what people forget about social media. Building value and equity is only half way there. You need to get the billing relationship going as soon as you can. You need to start giving offers, news and such information related to your business goals – making more money – as soon as you connect with the person. I do not agree with people who say you cannot sell through social media. I’ve seen the contrary several times and so, I believe it is a matter of poor tactics rather than lack of possibilities.

Anyhow, once you have the user data, the rest is a matter of fishing. Put on a fat worm on the hook and kick back and relax. If you get one person to bite, you will get the rest to follow. I am going to introduce something called aggregated conversion rates in my book about viral marketing. This concept builds on that you only need a very low conversion rate in big networks such as e-mail or Facebook in order to get great results. A conversion rate of 1% in a network where people have an average of 100 people makes your viral campaign infinite. It will go from one person to the next, to the next and then to the next.

Anyhow. Again… Once you have the user data you can choose between running your buyers persuasion on Facebook or off Facebook. Either you do like Amazon and use gift/birthday notifications via e-mail, together with social circle persuasion once on the website.

• Goal: buy a book (or several)
• Reason: This book is probably something you like
• Fact: So many of your friends rated the book top notch!

Another way of building a persuasion to buy, getting back to the coupon, is to create a survey on your Facebook page where you poll what people want to buy from you, or what they are interested in knowing more about. Then you base your weekly coupon on the findings you get from the survey.

• Goal: Buy my stuff
• Reason: Because this specific thing is the hottest stuff right now
• Facts: Because 90% of the Facebook page fans says so

Conclusion & disclaimer

So these are some tactics on how to build a buying customer out of a Facebook user. Think of persuasion and what type of way you can persuade your fans into moving along the ladder towards becoming a returning customer. If you happen o be at Dialogkonferansen in Strömstad next week I will elaborate on this in my session. Getting nervous as I usually speak in front of specialists and not marketing directors.

Naturally there are a million ways to build your customer base through Facebook. The above statements should be seen as inspiration and are not guaranteed to work for each and every business. I take no responsibility for what you do with my advice and if you decide to invest in any of the above be sure to consult me or someone else first so that you don’t make a mess of things. Add me to Skype: jesperastrom or just give me a call if you need clarification.

Possibly related posts:

• Related posts on Earn money social media
• Daily Digest for November 13th
• Ways iGaming Affiliates Can Earn Money: Social Media

• Related posts on Facebook Pages
• Facebook Tabs: What They Are & How to Use Them
• [Video] Facebook Launches Location Service “Pages” With Style …

The other day I got asked a question: “How resilient are you?”. The question was asked to me in a friendly environment, but it made me really start thinking. Why should anyone be asked to be resilient in the modern business environment? How can it even be an option to be resilient? Why should it be a trait to be resilient? Nothing in life should be about being resilient and nothing, I repeat nothing, in business should be so. Business, just as life, should be about adapting to the changing environment to produce the best possible output. Regardless if that output is happiness or steaming cash!

Business shall be about making money. Nothing more, nothing less. You can decide if you want to make that money in a decent manner or if you want to make that money in a dirty manner. That is completely up to you as an entrepreneur. The bottom line however is that you try to create the best product there is, with the buying consumer in mind. You aim to get the highest possible revenue out of some sort of input. That’s business.

If your customers buy expensive cause it blings, then you should make things that bling. If your customers buy stuff cause they think you have the most fair way of producing a good, then you should make it such. All in all, you should focus on what your customer really want and then try to make the highest possible turnover from that desire.

So far, everyone agrees with me. I hope. But why is it then seen as a trait that you are resilient as an employee? Customers aren’t! “Oh, we’re sorry you weren’t satisfied with our product this time either. Stick around a while longer and we’ll make sure to perhaps meet some of your expectations in the future. Remember, not all of them, but some of them.”

One time, yes perhaps, but to say that this is something that the customer should get used to?? No way. You would never say that, and you would never want that to be the case. Cause you would know that your customer would vote with his or her feet and go to a competitor that would be able to offer her or him that good.

So why is it that we. The young people striving for change, should have to wait around for better times?  We shouldn’t! To quote Obama; “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” That’s change for you. If we don’t move in the pace of our customers, then the customers will always look away from us for a better alternative.

When it comes to the web, this is even more so the case. The total transparency between promise and fulfillment becomes extremely powerful in an environment where everyone has the production capabilities to make oneself heard, and anyone can tell a story interesting enough for loads of people to listen.

We do not know what the world will look like tomorrow and we cannot look into the future. What we do know is that it will be different than today. If we apply what we did yesterday, to the imagination of today, we still don’t reach there. We do not know. The only way to change tomorrow is to learn from yesterday, use all that is in our power today and take lead to realize our dreams for tomorrow. We need to dream, and it’s the dreams that should guide us rather than what is plausible right now. If you can think it, then you can do it. Especially when looking at it from a technology perspective.

If you lead, you will be a lot more uncomfortable than if you follow, but you will always be inline with what is now. Leading, is also taking a risk. What if people do not follow? Well that is really no risk at all, cause if you do really dream, and you utilize what is out there for you to utilize right now, and if you’ll listen to your customers whilst leading, then you will be able to change direction before it is too late. If you choose to follow, then you will always be one step away from being obsolete. Someone else will lead your customers away from you.

Now people often ask me about what ROI you can expect from using Social Media. I have been fortunate enough to learn a lot of ways to calculate this, and I don’t blame them for asking. However, the big question is what kind of return you as a company want. Either you want the same returns as you’ve always had, and thus you do the same thing, but in an online format. Or, you realize that you do have a great chance to take the lead and increase the rate at which your return builds in your pockets.

It is really up to us to decide where we want to take the present and how we want to lead into the future.

Had some fun cutting down some clips I found on YouTube tonight. As I was playing around I thought of an idea to actually try to break down what differs companies that make money and the ones that do not make money from social media. This first episode deals with the fact that you have to set up goals that are connected with your business strategy and overall business goals as well as measure how you’re moving towards these goals with the help of Social Media KPIs.

Please comment for improvements!

//Jesper

Picture taken from another speach I made at Göteborg University to a bunch of professors.

I held a talk on social media perspectives on the 15th of April. The audience consisted of a group of web analysts engaged in the network Web analytics wednesday. Below is the presentation that I shared with them. (Now translated into English)

Three main voices of Social Media Debate
Basically my theory is that there are three major voices in the social media debate right now. There are the evangelists, the marketers and then a group I would like to call Dr Data. This presentation tries to tell the story of how these three groups communicate what social media is, what is its value and also how it should be measured.

Not really perfect
It is in no way a perfect presentation, and it is kind of plain in its format. But my main point is that there is too much pullet proof lines between the three groups right now. We need to co-operate with eachother in order to build a sustainable web for the future. Only then will we be able to really increase the values of our business online.

Let’s make loads of money
For you sensitive viewers out there… be adviced. I strongly argue that all activities a company does in social media should be aimed towards making money out of it. View this presentation as bullets. One perspective on three perspectives.

I know there are some parts of this presentation that needs explanation. Please make comments below and I’ll try my best to explain.

If you are looking to convert through social media, you have to recognize that it is a completely different task than converting traffic from a search engine.

In this post I will quickly run through two situations where the mindset of a person will enable you to make a sale through social media.

• The must have buy
• The viral buy

The mindset
First of all you have to take the mindset of people engaged in social media into consideration. Imagine the off line activity when you sit with your loved one in a restaurant and all of a sudden one of those flower guys shows up to harrass you.

In any circumstance other than this one you would probably flick him off and hope he/she goes to hell for intruding with a sales proposal whilst you are trying to engage in some quality time with your babe. However, you see your loved ones face, how desparately he/she wants a flower, whether or not he/she admits it, and so you have to bow to the intrusion and buy a flower. (Don’t try to tell me that you buy flowers cause you want to…)

Secondly, imagine if the flower sales man would come up to you, but instead try to sell you a car. Even though your loved ones desparate eyes might have some effect upon you, I am sure most of the worlds population would be able to resist.

The must have buy
The example above illustrates one of the strongest driving forces behind a buy in social media. The “have to” buy is the best situation you can find yourself in as a marketer. Many social networks have been successful in launching “have to” buys through introducing artificial value artifacts such as icons that you can buy to another person to show them that you like them. Generally these gifts are placed on your profile page of the social network and thus shows your status amongst friends.

Thus, when ever you can find a situation where your potential consumers can earn status from buying your product, you should try to use this in your marketing technique.

The viral buy
Another way of successfully working with marketing through social media is to work with “word-of-mouth” or viral marketing. Taking the example of the loved one again. Imagine if you are currently choosing between two different car models and your loved one says she perfer the one or the other. This will make you more likely to buy the car. Also, if your best friend recommends it, or if some kind of expert recommends it, it is not that drastic to assume that you will buy the car.

Now, there are two VERY important pieces of information in the pharagraph above. Firstly, the person you will be able to sell a car to through social media will have to be in a choice situation. Secondly, the recommendation has to come from a trusted source.

In this post I will not go through how to find people who are in a choice situation or how you become a trusted source, but I will cover this in later posts.